THE GRAND CANAL. 299 



large burnt bricks, nineteen to twenty-five feet high, on 

 a base of granite blocks, nineteen feet wide, the interval 

 filled up with clay, stones, and broken bricks, with 

 quadrangular turrets at irregular distances ; the 

 second is lower a,nd narrower, l^uilt of granite, and 

 towers at intervals ; the third consists of heaped-up 

 stone blocks and occasional watch-towers ; and the 

 fourth of clay walls, twelve to fifteen feet high, and 

 towers. 



The canal has also fallen into a very dilapidated 

 condition, having become almost useless owing to the 

 change effected in the bed of the Hoang-ho, or Yellow 

 River, which is at present flowing along its natural 

 course. A propos of this stream and the Yellow Sea^ 

 Whang-hai, both receiving their names from the 

 yellowish soil carried down by the former, there is a 

 very interesting chapter in Baron F. von Eichthofen's 

 recent great work on China, explaining the extra- 

 ordinary formation of what he terms "loess" along the 

 Hoang-ho. These are strata, consisting of friable dark 

 yellow earth deposited, from time immemorial, by that 

 river, which has been subjected to periodical changes of 

 its 1)ed ; but the curious part of it is that they often 

 assume a height not only of hundreds, but actually of 

 thousands of feet, which seems to show that there 

 must have been other agencies at work to aid these 



